The present invention relates to an automatic film developing apparatus. More particularly, it relates to an automatic film developing apparatus for drawing out a film from a cartridge, developing it, and winding up the film into the cartridge automatically.
Hitherto, an exposed photographic film is drawn out of the cartridge, developed, and printed. After being printed, one film is cut into pieces of six frames each, and each piece is put into a film sheet to be returned to the customer together with the prints.
However, since the cartridge in which the film has been contained is discarded and the film is newly put into film sheet, it is a waste of resources, and the cost becomes high. In the case of extra printing, moreover, since the film has been cut, each must be conveyed into the negative mask, and it is caught in the process of conveying and the job efficiency is poor.
Recently, there have been known films wound up again in the original cartridge, but generally the operator must manually wind up the films and must search the original cartridge, which takes a lot of time, and the job efficiency is not good. Besides, when winding up a film, it might be put back into a wrong cartridge by mistake.
In the light of these circumstances, it is hence a primary object of the present invention to provide an automatic film developing apparatus capable of winding up the film surely in the cartridge, saving labor in work, and enhancing the job efficiency.